Research Notes

It\’s complicated, an employee\’s decision to leave a job â€“ even more complicated than previously believed, Texas A&M University researchers conclude after conducting research on when job searches result in turnover.

Imagine borrowing from someone else’s stockpile of corporate stocks, then selling shares, later buying them back and returning them, keeping any profit. That’s what short sellers do on a regular basis, and they tend to out-perform the analysts.

Businesses competing with larger companies â€“ particularly those that enter a market by acquiring an established business â€“ will fare better if they differentiate themselves from the â€œbehemothsâ€ rather than imitate them or take them head-on, suggests research on the topic.

Bootlegged concert recordings, undocumented immigrants building houses in the U.S., New York City street vendors selling designer knock-offsâ€”these are examples of a largely unexamined economic activity, the informal economy. These economic activities are considered illegal yet still viewed as socially acceptable or legitimate by some substantial segment of society.

Toward the end of their relationship, Enron was paying nearly $50 million each year to Arthur Andersen for services, including both internal and external audit functions. Did the risk of losing such a large client lead to the ethical compromises that Andersen was willing to make in colluding in the enormous fraud scandal that eventually brought down both firms?

When you hear of corporate scandals, you might assume that the perpetrators of the crime were acting out of self-interestâ€”that they cooked the books or covered up information to get rich or move up the corporate ladder. But what if there was another motivation that has nothing to do with personal gain?

Employee wellness programs have often been viewed as a nice extra, not a strategic imperative. But the data demonstrate otherwise, according to a team of researchers led by Leonard L. Berry of Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, Ann M. Mirabito of Baylor University and William B. Baun of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Two things can dramatically decrease the level of pollution likely to be created by a firm, says new research. No, it\’s not complicated machinery for carbon sequestration, or more government regulation. It\’s much simpler: family ownership and financial rewards.

When it comes to disclosure of financial misstatements in a corporate press release, companies do better to keep things quiet. The less prominent the news of the error, the fewer class-action lawsuits will result. Furthermore, the greater the prominence of the news, the greater the decline in market value for the company.